Pages

Saturday, 3 December 2016

Patriotism thrives best when freely willed (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

It would be difficult to determine if exposure to the national anthem
before watching a movie actually increases the patriotism in the mind of
the citizen.

The
Supreme Court of India has decreed that the national anthem be played
in all cinema theatres and that cinegoers stand to attention during such
a recital, with all exits closed. The objective of the order is to
ensure that the spirit of patriotism rises within each cinegoer, a
desirable process that hopefully gets created when the anthem gets
played on screen. The significance of this order on the rights of the
citizen is immense. Hence many may regard it helpful for the court to
define precisely what “patriotism” means, apart of course from standing
to attention whenever the national anthem gets sung. What are the other
requisites of this noble and necessary quality in the citizen, and would
it not be best were the Supreme Court to order that the observance of
each of these conditions be made mandatory for the citizen? Perhaps the
country will soon get the benefit of a fuller order, in which each of
the essential components of patriotism gets listed and made compulsory
for citizens of India. Also, some may argue that patriotism needs to be
constantly refreshed in each individual, not only in a cinema theatre,
but also in other locations frequented by the public.

The national anthem is indeed a magnificent composition.
It is impossible not to feel a surge of emotion when listening to its
language. However, some believe that the anthem should not be used in a
medley of locations, but rather be played on occasions that are of
greater import than the screening of a film of less than stellar
quality. Also, that a decision on whether the occasion be solemn enough,
significant enough, to merit the privilege of having the anthem played
be left to the discretion of individual citizens, rather than to the
police or other agencies of the state. If a school or a college is
holding a function that is regarded as important, it may be fitting to
begin or end the proceedings by the playing of the national anthem. If a
factory has broken global records in quality, at the celebratory
function held on the occasion, it may be appropriate to play the anthem
so as to highlight that the citizens of India, who are almost without
exception reverential to the national anthem, are among the finest in
the world. However, we need to be reminded of the reality that the
difference between a democracy and an authoritarian system is the fact
that in the former, the overwhelming majority of decisions get taken by
private individuals and not by command of the state.

Incoming US President Donald J. Trump would be delighted
at the Supreme Court’s anthem verdict, although it is unlikely that the
Court in his own country would go along with their brothers in the Apex
Court in Delhi. Even Antonin Scalia, regarded as the most conservative
of judges, was clear that only a monarch could decree that the US flag
be kept inviolate. Scalia said that US citizens were immune from penalty
even if they were to publicly burn the flag, while of course,
soon-to-be President Trump would like such individuals to even be
deprived of their citizenship. India does not any more have a monarch on
a throne, in Delhi or in London, but an elected government. Seeking to
enhance patriotism through the anthem being shown in cinema theatres may
not always work, as it would be difficult to determine if exposure to
the national anthem before watching a movie actually increases the
patriotism in the mind of the citizen. In jurisprudence it is, after
all, the “mens rea” and not the “actus reus” that determines if a crime
has been committed, i.e., the thought must precede the act and not be
disengaged from the latter. What if a citizen has fulfilled the “actus
reus” of standing up in respect to the national anthem, but his mind,
his “mens rea”, is less than respectful? After all, the emotion, indeed
the instinct, of patriotism is a quality that needs to get rooted in the
mind, and as yet, thoughts are much more difficult to fathom than
actions. Not forgetting of course that the mind in the Knowledge Era
thrives in a culture of freedom.

Why do students in US universities do better in life than
those in many universities in India? Perhaps because students in India
are spoon-fed, force-fed in fact. They are drained of initiative and
individualism and are subjected to the constant hammer blow of enforced
conformity, while students in the US are encouraged to think and act for
themselves and indeed, to challenge what their professors seek to drill
into them. The Indian mind is at least as versatile as any other, if it
were not constantly constricted by a web of regulations that takes away
huge tranches of the freedoms available to citizens in all other major
democracies. Even without this latest fiat by the Supreme Court, an
institution that merits the admiration of every citizen, this columnist
has risen to his feet whenever the national anthem gets played. Not
because he has to, but because he wants to. And not every individual who
remains seated may be unpatriotic. Some of the sitting may, indeed,
have done greater service to this country than those standing up. Each
citizen has, or ought to have, the right to express his or her
patriotism in the manner he or she deems proper, without being made to
follow a particular menu of actions regarded as being the attributes of
patriotism. The citizen looks to the Supreme Court to expand the
boundaries of freedom in a country still in the straitjacket of a
colonial mode of governance, and the way to do this may be to leave
manifestations of patriotism to the sensibilities of the individual
rather than enforced by command.

No comments:

Post a Comment

M D Nalapat's Latest Book

Click on image to buy

Search this blog

Share this blog

Follow by Email

About Prof. M. D. Nalapat

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (aka MD Nalapat or Monu Nalapat), holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. The former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. @MD_Nalapat

MD Nalapat's anthology 'Indutva' (1999)

In 1999, Har-Anand published Indutva an anthology of MD Nalapat's 1990s columns from the Times of India. The individual columns are posted here, in 1998 and 1999 of the blog archive, though the exact dates of publication are uncertain.